


Break the Bounds of the Ground

by yet_intrepid



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Mother-Son Relationship, spacelatinxsweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 20:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10793904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: “How long you been flying, Dameron?” one of Poe’s classmates asks, their first day as New Republic Navy cadets. They’re in the mess hall, getting their first taste of terrible military food, and Poe looks up from his plate to grin.“Long as I can remember,” he says. It comes out smooth as take-off, easy as exaggeration.[for spacelatinxsweek day one: favorite character!]





	Break the Bounds of the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the fan song "In Flight" by idiopathicsmile!
> 
>  
> 
> _and when new villains rise, we will take to the skies:_  
>  _yeah, new tyrants will rise; so will we._  
>  _and we'll fly,_  
>  _break the bounds of the ground, and laugh and burn brighter_  
>  _oh that's why,_  
>  _and it's part of the fight to remember: you're more than a fighter._

“How long you been flying, Dameron?” one of Poe’s classmates asks, their first day as New Republic Navy cadets. They’re in the mess hall, getting their first taste of terrible military food, and Poe looks up from his plate to grin.

“Long as I can remember,” he says. It comes out smooth as take-off, easy as exaggeration. “Raised in a cockpit, basically.”

The thing is, it’s not exaggeration. The earliest memory Poe has is flying, sitting in his Mama’s lap. He must have been just three or so, but he remembers. It was her A-wing, the one she flew at Endor, and he can remember the chilly smoothness of the controls under his tiny fingers, the warmth of her hands guiding his.

\----

“You remember what blue is, Poe?” Shara asks, running one hand through her toddler’s curls as she programs coordinates with the other. Poe has been begging to help her fly for weeks now, and he’s gotten too hard to resist. Gotten old enough, too, she thinks, that he can learn a little. “Which button is blue?”

“That one!” Poe points. He turns on her lap to show her his triumphant grin. “That one blue.”

“Yay!” Shara cheers for him. Then, finishing with the navicomputer, she switches off the autopilot. “In just a minute, I want you to press the the blue button, okay?”

“Okay!” Poe starts to stand up, balancing on her legs with wobbly determination. “Blue button, blue button!” he sing-songs. “Blue button, blue button!”

“Wait just a minute still,” Shara warns. She ruffles his hair one more time, makes sure that the autopilot is disengaged, and takes a breath.

“Okay buddy, ready?” she asks.

“Ready!” Poe echoes.

“Which button?”

“Blue button!”

“All right, ace,” Shara laughs. “Punch it.”

Poe leans forward, her right hand steadying him, and hits the button. As the engines come alive, Shara sees Poe’s eyes widen with delight.

“Are we gonna go in the sky, Mama?” he asks. “And I’m gonna help us go in the sky?”

“Yes you are,” Shara tells him, laughing. “Okay, sit back down, and put your hand right here.” She settles his hand on the right steering handle, covering it with her own, then settles her left in place and squeezes the acceleration trigger into play. Pulling up on the handle for altitude, she helps Poe keep the ship straight as they rise above the landing strip.

Poe frowns in concentration, sensitive to the guidance of her hand. Pulling the handle up with her, pushing forward and a little to the left just as Shara does, he doesn’t turn to look at her even for a moment. Instead, he gazes out the front of the cockpit with shining eyes.

A natural, Shara thinks, an ace pilot, and she wonders at the sorrow that rises unbidden in her heart. It’s as if she can see him twenty years older, up in a ship of his own, fighting in some new war with that indomitable grin on his face.

He won’t be her baby forever.

“Mama,” Poe asks, still keeping his eyes straight forward in awe. “You can fly _anything_ , can’t you?”

“Yeah, ace,” she tells him. They break through the light clouds, streak up into clear sky. “And one day, you’ll be able to, too.”

\----

“Can you fly a TIE fighter?” the trooper asks, and it is no time for old memories, but Poe can almost see his mother’s face, her hands on his.

“I can fly anything,” he says, and smiles—smooth as take-off, easy as truth.


End file.
